Modeling Dust Halos in Comet Hale-Bopp (1995 O1): Existence of Two Active Nuclei Unequivocally Implied

Details Modeling Dust Halos in Comet Hale-Bopp (1995 O1): Existence of Two Active Nuclei Unequivocally Implied Modeling Dust Halos in Comet Hale-Bopp (1995 O1): Existence of Two Active Nuclei Unequivocally Implied

Dec 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998apj...509l.133s&link_type=abstract

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 509, Issue 2, pp. L133-L136.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

9

Comets: General, Comets: Individual: Name: Hale-Bopp 1995 O1, Methods: Data Analysis, Techniques: Image Processing

Scientific paper

The morphology of the comet's expanding, nearly concentric dust halos, which were observed extensively in 1997 February-April, is modeled by employing a Monte Carlo computer-simulation technique. A satisfactory model for the halos in late March requires only a slight correction to the spin-vector position determined previously from the diurnal evolution of a jet on February 28. A surprising result is the finding that, with this spin constraint, the halos observed in late February, only a few days before the jet, cannot be accounted for by ejecta from any combination of dust sources on the nucleus. Instead, the presence of a source on another nearby object-a second nucleus-is clearly implied. The spin vectors of the two nuclei are found to have subtended an angle greater than 90 deg, but the tilt of their equatorial planes to the comet's heliocentric orbital plane may have practically been the same. Dust emission from the second nucleus is also shown to account for some of the fine jet features observed in late March. Thus, the existence of an active satellite nucleus, independent evidence for which was reported elsewhere, is strongly suggested by the comet's dust morphology.

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